1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a robot hand for a forging apparatus which is capable of carrying out forging using a robot, in particular die forging performed on a die having a plurality of stamping impressions thereon as well as hammer forging and press forging, and in particular to a robot which can protect a robot hand per se and the robot main body by reducing the impact occurring on hammering, and which is capable of accurately positioning a workpiece to be forged on each of plural stamping impressions.
2. Related Art
There is not known a robot hand which is capable of suitably coping with deformation of material due to impacts, vibrations and hammering occurring in association with die forging especially performed on a die having a plurality of stamping impressions using a hammer.
Die forging using a hammer generates impacts and vibrations since it involves deforming material to be forged with impact energy. It is difficult to stably hold the material to be forged with a conventional robot or manipulator.
Deformation of blank material and the shape of resulting burrs is irregular, and in particular, a gripped portion of the material to be forged is irregularly deformed. In die forging in which forging is carried out for each of the stamping impressions after the material is successively moved relative to each of a plurality of stamping impressions on a die, a robot is unable to accurately load the material to be forged on next stamping impression of the die due to changes in relative position between the robot hand and the material which is subject to plastic deformation. Such forging has heretofore been conducted by manually holding workpieces to be forged.